The Whigs in 1836

So, as I'm sure many of us are aware, the Whigs in the 1836 election attempted to through the election by running two regional candidates (one for the North, one for the South), plus two more state-specific candidates (in Massachusetts and South Carolina). The idea was to deny Van Buren enough electoral votes to force the election into the House of Representatives.

Now, this idea hings on the House of Representatives being controlled by the Whigs. But, as far as I can tell, the House was controlled by the Democrats, not the Whigs.

What's the deal?

In the event that a House elects the President it is the outgoing House that does it and if we assume they'll vote in the same manner as in 1824, representatives caucus as a state and the majority decision in a state leads that states' 1 vote.

I've done the math here and Martin Van Buren still seems to come out on top. Assuming everyone votes the party line (and calculated with both split Whigs and unified Whigs), the Democrats control 13 votes, the Whigs control 10 votes, and Maryland and Missouri are tied and unable to cast votes, but even if they vote Whig, it makes no difference, especially if you want to factor in Michigan, which just gives another vote to Van Buren.

So what logic were the Whigs operating under?

This is a guess: the northerners weren't prepared to accept the southern candidate and vice versa, and nobody would back down or accept a compromise candidate. It was either run multiple candidates or the party would fragment. The regional Whig candidates at least weren't running against each other.

It may not have worked, but the alternatives wouldn't have been any better.

Bee said:

This is a guess: the northerners weren't prepared to accept the southern candidate and vice versa, and nobody would back down or accept a compromise candidate. It was either run multiple candidates or the party would fragment. The regional Whig candidates at least weren't running against each other.

It may not have worked, but the alternatives wouldn't have been any better.

Click to expand...

Well, yeah, that is exactly why the Whigs ran multiple candidates. But no matter how you do the math, the Democrats were going to win. So where does the conception that they did it so they could elect their President in the House come from? As far as I can tell, they never had a chance even if the electoral gambit had worked.

Lyly said:

Well, yeah, that is exactly why the Whigs ran multiple candidates. But no matter how you do the math, the Democrats were going to win. So where does the conception that they did it so they could elect their President in the House come from? As far as I can tell, they never had a chance even if the electoral gambit had worked.

Click to expand...

An after-the-fact rationalization? They'd painted themselves into this corner, then told their supporters 'we're doing this as a deliberate strategy to throw the election to the House'. Either that or they didn't do the math as well as you did. I haven't seen anything contemporary which gives the definitive answer.

Perhaps they hoped the Democrats would factionalise in the House because a lot of them didn't like Van Buren?